26 Jun – The producer of the halted Kevin Cheng-starrer, "Route", has recently held a press conference to defend the studio over allegations of overspending that eventually shut down production. As reported on Mingpao, David Kai, who owns the copyright of the said drama, recently addressed allegations that the company has exceeded the amount given by investor Youku, claiming that his company has several reasons for overspending the money, and that it has been conducted under Youku's knowledge and approval. "The original script only calls for 24 episodes, but Youku asked for it to be lengthened to 38. They also moved the location from Malaysia to Thailand. As for the actors, Youku also asked for the fees to be increased for lead actors Kevin Cheng and Michael Tse," he said. He added that since Kevin and Michael's scenes were increased from 60 to 180, the fees were increased up to 25 percent from the original agreement. David also added that the studio had to increase spending when another actor, who was originally cast to join the project, was replaced by Taiwanese actor Ming Dao. He stated that the issues have already been pointed out to Youku executives, but instead of resolving it, the studio was asked to shut down production, which led to many crew members being stuck in Thailand with no further information earlier this month. As for the fate of the drama, David said that as far as he knows, Youku has hired another studio to shoot the drama. "It is illegal for the other party to hire a different company to shoot the project without copyright. We have already handed this issue to our legal team and they have issued a letter on 21 June. If we receive no reply in three days, we will send another notice to halt filming," he added. While fans might need to wait a while to see Kevin Cheng in this drama, they can at least catch him first in the upcoming movie, "L Storm", which also features Julian Cheung, Louis Koo and Stephy Tang. (Photo source: hk01.com)